I recently joined ROTEC – Reverse Osmosis Technologies full time to help build a U.S.-dedicated business for the company. But ROTEC’s roots are in Israel. It was founded as a spinoff from Ben Gurion University in the Negev desert. Much of the desalination and water treatment technology in the world today has emerged from Israel, born out of necessity, the mother of invention.

ROTEC’s mission is to bring its technology to the rest of the world to improve water treatment systems. I firmly believe that commerce, and as a subsector of that, water infrastructure and innovation, are tools for peace.

Human beings are one family, and we all need water. It is incredibly painful for me to see water and water infrastructure used as weapons of war.

As a human, I abhor violence, violence against innocent civilians in particular, and I expect anyone that I interact with to feel the same.

As a Jew, I am fearful of the hate that I see in the words and chants expressed towards my people, and as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors I take this hatred extremely seriously.

As an Israeli, I am pained to be so far away from loved ones and friends in a country that I have called home for nearly the last 10 years.

Loved ones are under rocket fire, friends and colleagues have been called into the reserves, and friends of friends have been senselessly murdered.

And despite all of this pain, Israel continues to push forward. ROTEC staff members are working from home and close to bomb shelters, but they are working. ROTEC employees that have been called into reserves are still somehow sending emails. ROTEC and WFI Group have used their resources to deliver badly needed goods and equipment to displaced families from the South of Israel, and to soldiers that were forced to hurry to assignments in the North of the country.

My hope is that one day soon we can live in a world where I can help design and install advanced water treatment technology in Gaza, in collaboration with Israel, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia. But it can only happen in a world where our governments care more about water, commerce and peace than they do war.